Mark 4:26-34 - 8 Small Tips for Changing the World

Right when I see King Jesus in heaven, his first words are not

going to be Job well done, good and fruitful servant.

His words will be Job well done, good and faithful servant.

Chapter 4 Towards the end of the chapter, we're looking at verses

26 all the way to the end of the chapter, and and 34.

We've got two parables, almost identical parables, but there's

some unique differences in how the parables operate.

We'll look at that this morning, but here's what both of the

parables have in common. This morning.

We're thinking about the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of God, how

it grows, what it's like, who grows it, and what it does to

the rest of the garden all around it.

Two parables. Both of them are fantastic, But

let me catch this up before we look at those parables and mark

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Chapter 4 towards the end of the chapter, here's what you've

missed. If this is your first Sunday

here, Jesus has officially, publicly launched his ministry.

He's endured temptation from Satan and the wilderness.

He's healed the sick. He's casted out demons.

He's teaching. And as he's done all of this

publicly, what he's done is he's gathered a crowd of people

around him to say that Jesus is the most compelling person who's

ever lived. To say that Jesus has the most

interesting person who has ever lived is a bit like calling the

Grand Canyon sizable. True enough, but an

understatement of epic proportions.

Everybody who hears and teaches drawn to him, and they hang on

his every word with with jaws that hit the floor.

And so there's Jesus by the seaside, a crowd of people

around him. And Jesus launches into these

parables about how the Kingdom of God changes the world.

These parables are short stories filled with everyday

environments and ordinary objects.

The Kingdom of God is like a man who scatters a seed in the

field. Everybody's like, I know what

that looks like. The Kingdom of God is like a

light that you don't hide under a bed.

People are like, I don't know what lamps look like.

So there's ordinary objects and ordinary environments.

And yet when you dig into that, hidden in the ordinariness of

these parables are heavenly truths.

And so as Jesus and his disciples begin to listen to

Jesus teach in parables, some people get it.

They're hanging on. Jesus is every word.

They find him to be a phenomenal public order.

Other people are frustrated by the parables, and so they walk

away And the disciples in the middle, and I think it's assumed

to say this, are just a little bit of they're a little bit

anxious about the way that Jesus's teachings are being

received. There's an anxiety that begins

to settle among the disciples. They would prefer that Jesus

would just teach plainly, right? You're the Messiah, you're the

king. Make it plain.

Don't hide the truth, right? This is not hard to understand.

If you were there, you'd probably feel the same way.

It would be a bit like you showing up to church on a Sunday

morning, bringing a friend who doesn't know the gospel, really

hoping and praying for a clear gospel presentation, and instead

having a pastor who gets up there and says, OK guys, life

with. God is like 3 sets of

footprints. In this snow you'd be like

dikey. Make it plain.

This isn't why we tied at this church.

You can understand their anxiety.

So let me start here. Life with God is like three sets

of footprints. In the snow since the middle of

winter, an Iowa snowstorm comes along.

School is canceled, so three boys go out to go play in the

snow. As they run out to a Prairie

Meadow filled with snow, they see an open, empty, covered with

snow gleaming white surface that nobody has yet stepped on.

So the boys decide to play a game.

Since there's no footprints there, let's find out who can

walk the straightest and farthest line into the distance.

So the boys walk as straight and as far as they can, and when

they get to the end of the Prairie, they stop and they turn

around and they see three sets of footprints in the snow.

However, only one of the sets of footprints could be said to be

straight. So the boys said, all right,

what was your strategy? Boy, #1 says, Well, my strategy

was since my feet are carrying me, I just kept my eyes fixed on

my feet. But as my feet continued to move

forward, what ended up happening was I lost sight of the distance

and I walked in a zigzag in the wrong direction.

OK, boy #2, what was your strategy?

He said. Well, I thought maybe what I

would do was take in as much as I could of my surroundings.

So I I walked and I looked to the left, I looked to the right,

I looked at all the trees I could in the distance.

But as I continued to look around without even knowing it,

I just started walking in circles.

So they said, the boy #3, you're the one who did it.

How did you walk a straight line in the snow out here in the

Meadow? And what the boy said was this.

All I did was I fixed my eyes on one tree in the distance.

I never looked away from it. And I walked towards that tree

and that tree alone. And that's what produced the

straight line of footprints. So fun, Parable, let me ask you,

what do you see when you look behind you?

Don't physically look behind yourself right now, but

mentally, when you look behind yourself, when you look behind

your life, what type of footprints do you see?

Is it a zigzag Walking in the wrong direction, always catching

the flashiest thing that comes to your eye?

Always chasing all the trends? When you look behind yourself,

do you see circles spiraling in the wrong direction?

Maybe wholeheartedly pursuing something but in the wrong

direction? Or when you look behind your

life, do you see one straight line of footprints?

And if you don't and you want to change the world this morning,

how would you walk a straight line in this world?

What's what is the one tree to fix your eyes on in the

distance? Well, luckily Jesus tells us

that answer. Let's go ahead and stand for the

reading of God's Word. Couple parables within a

parable. Verse 26.

Jesus said the Kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed

on the ground. He sleeps, He rises night and

day, and the seed sprouts and grows.

He knows not how the earth produces by itself.

First the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear.

But when the grain is ripe at once, he puts in the sickle

because the harvest has come. Here's Parable #2 goes on to

say, with What can we even compare the Kingdom of God, or

what parable shall we use for it?

It's like a grain of mustard seed.

That's about the most politically incorrect thing

Jesus could have said. Don't worry, I'll tell you why.

Eventually. It's like a grain of mustard

seed, which, when sown on the ground, is the smallest of all

the seeds on the earth. Yet when it's sown and grows up

and becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out large

branches so that the birds of the air can make nests in a

shade. And so with many such parables,

he continued to speak the word to them as they were able to

hear it. He didn't speak to them without

a parable, but privately, as he always does if you push into

Jesus and ask them for clarity after church, privately to his

own disciples, he explained everything.

You can have a seat. So Jesus has gathered a crowd of

people around him while he stands beside the sea, teaching

in parables. And one thing that we have to

take note of when we think about this crowd around him is that

it's incredibly diverse. Just an incredibly diverse crowd

of people around you. You got Gentiles, you've got

Jews, you've got zealots. In fact, even if usually Jesus

12 disciples, you have incredible amount of diversity

among them. You've got Jewish zealots on one

hand, Roman tax collectors on the other hand, and everything

in between them. So there's tons of distinctions

between these people and what they want and how they want to

accomplish it. But they do all share one common

desire. And the common desire is this.

They all desire to change the world.

It's not hard to see why. In their historical setting,

everything around them was crumbling.

You look at the Roman government, things are

atrocious. In the Roman government you have

Caesar leading people, manipulatively, demanding

worship from his people and crucifying people as treasons as

as as treacherous. If they don't worship him, OK,

so things are not going great in the Roman government.

If you looked at that, you would say I want to change the world.

But if you look at Judaism in the 1st century, it's not that

much better, right? You look at what's going on in

the temple, you have money hungry people and they're taking

advantage of religious people. You even have Jewish leaders,

Jewish priests who have gone to bed with the Roman government

and have basically modified their message in order to stay

safe with the Roman government. And so no matter what you look

at, all these people are waiting for the Kingdom of God to come

change the world. And even though you're 2000

years removed from that world, I hope you feel at least a similar

way when you look out into the world.

I hope. You think, man, I hope God

changes that world. I hope when you look at the

world, you say, I want to change the world.

Changing the world is precisely what this crowd of people around

Jesus want to do. But the big questions are, how's

it going to happen? Is it going to happen by

military force? Is it going to happen by

protest? Is it going to happen with

fireworks and fog machines and strobe lights?

How to phrase the question theologically?

How will the Kingdom of God overcome the world?

And that question is the purpose of Jesus's 2 parables this

morning. So here's what I'm going to do

for the rest of the sermon. I'm going to preach a sermon

that I never thought I would preach before because in my

pulpit ministry for the last six years, I've always been the type

of preacher who makes fun of preaching.

That is, how to do lists or tips and tricks on how to follow

Jesus. I've always been the guy who's

like that is so lame. But today, here's what I'm

doing. I'm going to spend the rest of

our time together preaching 1 long list of things, one long

list of ideas. And here's the sermon title of

the sermon I never thought I would preach How to Change the

World in Eight Simple Steps. Cole six years ago would have

made fun of Cole today, How to Change the World in Eight Simple

Steps. Let's start with step number

one. You'll notice that all of these

parables point in this direction.

If you want to change the world then you have to imagine a world

that you can't imagine. Notice how Jesus preambles both

of the parables here in. In verse 26 he says the Kingdom

of God is as if and then verse 30.

With what can we even compare the Kingdom of God?

So both of these preambles are ways of Jesus talking about the

Kingdom of God and define the Kingdom of God.

And showing that human terms of defining the Kingdom of God is

impossible because the Kingdom of God is not of this world.

You can point at something earthly and say it's kind of

like this. You can point at something on

earth and say, well, it's it's kind of like that, but it

transcends everything in this world.

And so if the Kingdom of God is new to you, here's a really

simple definition. The Kingdom of God is an

invisible Kingdom that's in heaven, but it's currently

invading earth. The invasion of heaven has

already started, but it won't be completed until Jesus returns.

And the Kingdom of God is wherever Jesus is declared King

and his words and laws are obeyed and enjoyed.

You guys with me. The Kingdom of God is whenever

and wherever Jesus has proclaimed as King and his words

are delighted in and obeyed. And this Kingdom, not only is it

not of this world, it's in direct confrontation with this

world. Direct confrontation In fact,

what the Kingdom of God does is it unmasks the Kingdom of this

world. I I bet a couple of you saw this

prank a couple months ago. Did Did anybody in here?

I'm curious. Did anybody see the Payless shoe

prank from a couple months ago? Just you.

OK, so only a couple. OK.

Atticus you saw. OK, that's good.

OK, so this is brilliant. I'll tell you what I'm like.

I was ready to go buy some Payless shoes after I heard

this. So what?

Payless shoes. Did is they opened up and and if

you don't know, Payless Shoes is a discount shoe store.

Great stuff. They opened up a fake luxury

shoe store in Los Angeles and pulled a prank.

It was a fake luxury shoe store. They they branded it as luxury,

right? But they put their shoes in the

store and in the grand opening there's a literally a line of

people who formed around the outside of the door and they

took $35 shoes and sold them for $650.

I'm not good at math, but that's an 1800% markup.

And what I love most is that they interviewed the people who

bought their shoes too. And so there are these people

who are holding up these $35 Payless.

Shoes and and they go well. The thing I like most about

these shoes is how elegant and sophisticated they are.

And one person says I wrote it down.

One person says the best thing is I can tell it was made with

high quality materials. And so.

These people are spending their money on discount shoes at an

18, 100% markup and then in the. Interview.

They let them in on the prank. They're like, hey, the shoes you

just bought are $35 Payless shoes.

And one lady just goes. She just goes shut up, right?

Oh, here's the best part. They called the luxury store

Palessi. The world tries to scam you too,

right? This is what the enemy does.

The enemy puts the things of this world, hollow vein, empty

things in front of you and tries to convince you that it's

luxury, that it's it's quality. That you'll it'll finally fill

your happiness. That that this, this worldly

thing will finally satisfy your soul.

Spend your money on these things.

Spend your attention on these things.

Spend all your energy and effort on these things, these things

that we make and platform in front of you and put a price tag

on. I mean, how many of us in this

world have finally achieved some worldly goal that we really

wanted to accomplish? And we're like, that's going to

be the thing that finally makes me happy.

And you get it and you're just like, shut up.

It just doesn't satisfy, doesn't feel the whole.

It's just worldly satisfaction, worldly purp, worldly pleasure.

It's just hollow. And what the Kingdom of God says

to the Kingdom of the world is. It's just Payless.

It's cheap. And as your pastor, I don't want

you standing before King Jesus one day in judgment as he lets

you in on the prank going shut up all those things I invested

my time and energy on. They were actually worthless.

Both of these parables about the Kingdom of God are going to let

you in on the prank, the Kingdom of God.

Not only does it unmask the Kingdom of the world, it shows

that the Kingdom of this world is just chaffing the wind just

blowing away temporary. And so as a believer, if you

really want to change the world, you should know that human

Thrones and human human dominion will ultimately be cast down,

that worldly satisfactions and worldly treasures won't last.

But the the Kingdom of God is the Kingdom that will endure

forever. So the big question is, OK, how

do we build into that? And that brings us to our second

easy tip on how to change the world #2 If you want to change

the world, yeah, sleep at night. What?

You read a You read a book about changing the world and it's like

page one, hustle, page two, hustle.

Page three, what are you, a Sissy hustle?

And when Jesus talks about changing the world, let just

here's Jesus's words. Verse 27.

The Man Who Changes the World who plants a seed that grows.

He sleeps and rises night and day.

While you're sleeping what does the seed do?

The seed sprouts and grows and you got to love this.

The man knows not how don't you love that he's like how's this

happening. All I did was scattered.

I went to bed and and it's just been it's just been growing.

Well let's dig deeper here. So what Jesus is saying is the

Kingdom of God is like a seed. It starts out miniscule, tiny

and surprisingly, almost shockingly, it it grows.

And at the very least, the fact that Jesus tells us that the

seed scatterer sleeps and is surprised at the growth of the

Kingdom of God. At the very minimum, what Jesus

is letting us in on is that the growth of the Kingdom of God is

totally the result of God's sovereignty.

Now I like that word sovereignty.

I use it a lot. If you've been at frontier for a

while, you hear me use the word sovereignty a lot.

So let me just define that for us really quickly.

The word sovereignty is usually used to describe 3 concepts in

one fell swoop. Power, presence and control.

So to say that God is sovereign is to say that God is all

powerful over everything, that He is present everywhere, and

that He is in control of everything, including, and this

is pretty obvious in the parable, this seed.

So while while you're asleep, God is sovereign over the seed,

while you're asleep, God's making it grow.

And so to me. Sleeping seems to at least be a

symbol of trust or a symbol of giving up control.

What's the difference? And so if you're an overachiever

and you got super excited when I told you that the message this

morning was going to be How to Change the World, I've got a

crystal clear word for you. This parable clearly shows us

that we don't control the outcomes of our faithfulness

more times than usual. We're surprised.

Hey bro, that thing you did three years ago really blessed

me. What?

It's gross. Here's the way RC Sprole, a

great preacher, says it. He says, quote, You are

responsible for the faithfulness.

God is responsible for the fruitfulness.

So you need to enjoy being faithful to God and giving up

your American obsession with results.

It's obsession with results that makes people burn out on

Christianity. It's obsession with results that

makes the Kingdom of God feel like hell on earth.

It's obsession with results that makes us spiritually

constipated. You're afraid to say the wrong

thing, do the wrong thing. You're obsessed with outcomes.

You want to control them. And if that's you, look at the

parable. Jesus's word to you is this.

Sleep at night. Scatter sleep.

So even though your role in changing the world is to sleep

at night, strangely enough, that doesn't mean that your role in

the Kingdom is one of passivity. Let's go to tip #3 on how to

change the world. Yes, you got to sleep at night,

but tip #3 is you. Also, you got to get out of your

cot. Here's what I mean by this is

you begin to build the Kingdom of God on earth.

You're going to begin to spread the message of the Kingdom.

You're going to begin to tell people you love all around you

about King Jesus and how King Jesus died on the cross and he

forgives all of your sin and he covers you with grace by faith

alone, Through grace alone. And how after Jesus was

crucified, he was resurrected and ascended to heaven.

And so he rules and reigns over the entire world.

And that story is called the gospel.

And what Jesus says in this first parable is that the gospel

is the seed of the Kingdom of God.

And so if you, if you want to change the world, the gospel is

the seed that you're going to need to scatter.

Jesus refers to sharing. The gospel is scattering the

seed. And then look at verses 29,

scatter the seed. It grows by surprise.

And then you should have a sickle ready for when the seed

grows into a into a harvest. And so what's going on here is

that God is in control of the growth of his Kingdom.

He controls the growth. Amen.

But he doesn't rule over the world by just snapping his

fingers in heaven. He doesn't rule over the world

by just waving a magic wand in heaven.

He rules over the world by working through you, the seed

scatterer you are to scatter the seeds.

You're to be prepared with a sickle for when the harvest

comes. Another way of phrasing this is

really simple. You actually have a mission in

the Kingdom of God, and that is good news.

There's a there's a sociologist who made this excellent note

about what happened in in the Blitz during World War 2 in

London. It's just it's it's an amazing

story to think about. So in all throughout London

before the blitz of World World War Two, there were these

psychiatric wards that were filled with men who were

catatonic. They were, they were laid up in

these cots and and and they were, they were really

catatonic. They couldn't do anything.

They could barely get out. They were, they were stuck in

the psychiatric ward, almost paralyzed.

And then the Blitz happened. Germany started bombing, bombing

London. And so all the sudden, all over

London, they're just explosions everywhere, buildings falling

apart, people getting hurt. And because of all of the all of

the bombing there, there was way too much for the current people

in their, their fire trucks and their ambulances to take care

of. So you have all of this bombing

and you don't have enough people to drive the ambulances and to

to drive people to the hospitals.

And all of the sudden in London, these men in the psychiatric

ward, they've been catatonic, laid up in their cots.

All the sudden there's this need.

They don't have enough people to drive people to the hospitals.

All these sudden, these catatonic men start getting out

of their cots, walking out of the psychiatric ward and driving

ambulances and fire trucks to help people out.

What do you make of that? Here's 1000 things to make of

that. Here's here's one.

If people don't have a mission in this world, we'll get

catatonic in life. It's like you give people a

mission in this world, They'll crawl over broken glass with a

smile to accomplish the mission. It's it's an amazing story.

If theologically, if all God did was love us without giving us a

mission, we would be catatonic while feeling the warm fuzzies.

But because God loves us so much, not only does He save us

into his Kingdom, but He gives us a mission and a purpose.

And here's the way it works. Hey, these seeds.

This is my seed. I'm going to make it grow.

You don't have to stress about making it grow.

You don't have to be anxious about making it grow.

You don't have to stress about the strategy for for scattering

it. I'll make it grow.

You just get to scatter it. That's the mission.

I don't know about you, but that's a mission that I'll get

out of my cop for. So when you think about tip #2,

sleep at night and you think about tip #3, be involved with

the mission. How do you reconcile those two

things? Well, that brings us to tip #4

on how to change the world, except the paradox of tips

number two and three. Turns out that embracing God's

sovereignty over everything, embracing God's sovereignty over

the growth of the Kingdom of God, It turns out that what that

does is it generates participation, not passivity.

I don't know how. Just try it.

Try trusting God to be in control of everything and then

just being on mission with them and see what happens.

And so if you're with me in this sermon so far, congratulations.

You are halfway to being able to change the world.

And that brings us to our fifth tip for changing the world.

And for this one, we're going to dip into the second parable,

which is similar to the first one, but a little bit different.

So here's tip #5 on how to change the world.

If you want to change the world, you have got to ruffle some

feathers. So Jesus transitions into the

second parable, and in the second parable he compares the

Kingdom of God not just to a generic seed, but to a mustard

seed. Okay.

Catch this One of the reasons why this is brilliant is because

1st century Jewish people hated mustard plants.

Hated them. I mean, the literary brilliance

and humor of Jesus in this parable is just spot on.

Your average 1st century Jewish person loved gardening, right?

For a lot of different reasons. Obviously their culture was more

agricultural than ours. They gave prominence to the

Garden of Eden. So they love gardening, their

household economy and depended a lot more on on gardening.

And so they they absolutely just, they loved, they loved

gardens. But do you know what mustard

plants would do? Mustard plants were these stinky

little seeds that were almost invisible that would creep into

your garden. And what it would do is it would

choke out all of the vegetation around it.

And so and so don't miss this. A mustard seed is a revolution

in a garden. It doesn't just grow, it chokes

out the rest of the of the garden.

They hated mustard seeds. And Jesus is like, hey, the

Kingdom of God is like that. It's like a mustard seed.

This is brilliant. It's a deep cut and an

extraordinary prophecy. Because if you know history,

what does Christianity do? Well, if you know history, what

Christianity does is it begins as a little revolution among 12

losers and one Jesus. And then the mustard seed gets

planted and crushed, Jesus is crucified and his body is

literally lowered into the ground.

And then what happens is the seed begins to grow.

Jesus is resurrected, and then the real growth starts to

happen. And the Kingdom of God doesn't

just grow. What it does is it chokes out

all the other vegetation around it in the garden.

It chokes out all the paganism in the world around it, right?

If it were not for the Kingdom of God, we really don't have any

real reason to think that we would live in a world without

ritual childhood sacrifice. Christianity overthrew that.

Christianity choked out Paganism and as Christianity continue to

grow throughout the years, almost unbelievably it

overthrows and overtakes Rome. And then somehow, someway over

the next 1015 hundred 2000 years, in the year 2023, it's

this full grown mustard seed that has branches that reach all

the way over to Des Moines, IA so that you can be part of it.

Isn't that amazing? And so, as you seek to change

the world, just know there's two universal truths about the

Kingdom of God. First, the world's going to

think of it like mustard. People aren't going to like it.

Sometimes they're going to criticize it.

But #2 mustard plants always win.

So the Kingdom of God, I need you to hear me on this.

The Kingdom of God will be victorious.

It will continue to grow unstoppably.

People will be saved, People will confess that Jesus is Lord,

people will be filled with the Holy Spirit, people will be

forgiven of their sins, people will be clothed in the

righteousness of God, and Jesus will finally and fully return to

establish the Kingdom of God in its fullness.

I know sometimes it doesn't feel like that in the Western world,

but if you struggle with pessimism, here's a quote from

GK Chesterton from 100 years ago.

Quote Christianity has had a series of revolutions throughout

history, and in each one of them Christianity has died.

In fact, Christianity has died many times, but it has always

risen again, for it has a God who knew the way out of the

grave. Mustard seeds win.

Which brings us to our 6th tip for changing the world.

If you want to change the world for the love of God, don't use

them. Don't use a measuring tape is

what Jesus says in verse 31, The Mustard Seed.

Here's one of the reasons why he likes the parable of the mustard

seed. It is the smallest of all the

seeds on earth, so apparently I look this up.

A mustard seed is roughly the size of a period at the end of a

sentence in 10 point font. It looks like this.

I put it on my hand for you. Those are my sermon notes.

Put it on this hand for you. Can you see it?

No, it's right there. Yeah, you can, can't you?

Carpenter, is it there? Can you tell us?

It's right there. Here's the point.

It's hard to see. That's the way it starts.

Starts small, and so if you measure the success of the

heavenly Kingdom with earthly tools like measuring tapes, you

miss the point. You often think that for the end

breaking of the Kingdom to happen, you've got to have

flashing lights, the perfect word or be a pastor.

When in reality it starts like this.

A small word, an act of prayer when you don't feel like it,

encouraging a brother or sister, reminding your parents of the

gospel and what Jesus has done. Just these teeny tiny ways.

Jesus is referencing, I think, not just what you do to plant

the Kingdom of God on earth. I think he's also referencing

the smallness and ordinariness of how his own ministry appears,

because the nature of his kingship doesn't match what so

many people thought the Messiah would be like in the minds of

most people. They thought that when the

Messiah came, he would overthrow Rome with violent force and

military coercion. But it's mustard.

It's a mustard seed, right? Instead, the strange and odd

king, he achieves victory not by killing, but by dying now, by

coercion, but by love. His Kingdom started like a

period at the end of a sentence, and I think it would be wise for

those of us in the room who want to change the world to not

despise small things. Going to church, praying in the

morning, reading the Bible in private, forgiving our enemies,

showing our children how to delight in Jesus.

Because even though a mustard seed starts small, like a period

at the end of a sentence, small, when you put several periods

together in a row, that's called an ellipsis.

And in the English world in ellipsis, 3 periods in a row

means that the sentence isn't ending, but that the story is

continuing. dot, dot, dot. So don't, don't use worldly

tools to measure the success of the Kingdom of God.

Which brings us to our seventh point.

Here's a 7th tip for how to change the world.

If you want to change the world you got to be for the birds.

And this is where the parable of the mustard seed goes from

ruffling feathers to just straight up offensive.

When the Kingdom of God finally grows into a mustard plant with

branches it makes room and this is verse 32 for quote the birds

of the air to make their nest and its shade.

Birds and the Old Testament is a common reference to the gentiles

of other nations pagans. So what Jesus is saying is that

his Kingdom is going to grow to have branches that stretch so

wide that all the different birds of the air all over the

all over the world will make a home for themselves in the

branches of His Kingdom. You guys know the phrase ask for

the birds. It's always like to say

something lame, right? Like I have movies for the

birds, Cole's, mustaches for the birds, That's for the birds.

Bring you back. It's like a mustard seed.

No it's not. It's not.

It grows pretty fast. It's for the birds, right?

Usually a reference for something that's lame.

But luckily for you, Jesus is for the birds.

And the reason why that's good for you is because to a 1st

century Jew, you're a bird. And so Jesus saves people from

all over, weird people, some of whom you don't even like.

And again, that's good news, because to some people you're a

person they don't like. And so you got to realize that

Jesus and his Kingdom is for the birds.

The least likely the ones from over there, the ones over here,

is Kingdom is diverse. Not in the sense that it makes

room for other kings. It doesn't.

It's a theocracy. Jesus is king and his his word

goes, but it is diverse in every other way.

It's diverse in the sense that it's designed to be multiethnic.

It's diverse and that it's supposed to include intelligent

people and average people and people with mental, mental

disabilities. It's diverse and that it

includes old people and children and everything in between.

And that means that it's going to include some people you don't

like because Jesus saves people that you don't like, because

it's Kingdom. It's going to grow.

It's going to spread branches all over the world.

It's going to and Jesus is going to change the world.

And that brings us to our 8th and probably most important

point and tip for how to change the world.

If you want to change the world, then eighth, you should repent

of thinking that you can change the world.

Can't do it. It's not in your power, it's not

in your strength, and it's not your mission.

This whole sermon has really just kind of been a farce and a

parody for this exact point. So you can go and take your

notes from one through 7, crumple them up and throw them

away. Well, don't.

They're filled with truth. We looked at the biblical text,

but there is one premise that as you relisten to the sermon, you

need to get rid of. And that's the premise that you

are the one in any of these eight points that's changing the

world. It's not your job.

It's Jesus's job, Your job. Be faithful, your job.

It's the gist. Seek first the Kingdom.

If you don't do that, if you pressure yourself to change the

world, if you, if you become obsessed with results, it's

going to be deaf. Like don't pressure yourself to

change the world. Don't even put the pressure on

yourself to save your children or your friends.

Because if you do that right, all you're in charge of is the

faithfulness, not the fruitfulness.

And if you focus on your evangelism and if you focus on

your ministry and mission, like their statistics for the back of

a baseball card, life will feel like death.

And I know that because I have the temptation to do that.

And if I be totally honest with you guys, sometimes when I think

of my life in terms of results, I just get sad.

Like I'm disappointed with how little impact I feel like I've

had for the Kingdom of God in the world.

I like. I like I I wish that more

friends of mine had been saved by the gospel because of me.

And I wish that more people had been saved by the gospel because

of my preaching. And I wish that there were more

people who have been saved by Jesus because of my my, my, my

ministry in my life. My life has not produced the

results that I wanted to. It hasn't.

You know what my comfort is? God brings the growth.

That's God's job, right? When I see King Jesus in heaven,

his first words are not going to be job well done, good and

effective servant. His first words aren't even Job

well done, good and fruitful servant.

His words will be Job well done, good and faithful servant.

So just seek first the Kingdom of God.

I love that parable about the footprints in the snow because

it illustrates this perfectly. Setting your sights on yourself

is just looking at your feet. Setting your sights on the world

is just looking at everything around you so that you form a

zigzag path that makes no difference in the world.

All the changing, all the shifting.

And so when you look back at the footprints you left behind,

it'll just be a circle or a line in the wrong direction.

There's only one thing that never changes, Jesus.

And so the one tree for you to fix your eyes on in the distance

is the tree that Jesus died on. And if you focus on the Kingdom

of God, on Jesus first, it's going to leave a legacy for the

Kingdom, so that one day when you go to sleep and wake up in

heaven, you're going to be surprised and be like what you

did that with. Those things leave a straight

line behind. Seek first the Kingdom of God.

And Jesus isn't asking you to do anything he hasn't done for you.

Because even if your life has been a zigzag pattern, even if

your life has been circles in the wrong direction, there is a

straight line from the tree in the distance to you because

Jesus has sought you with a singular focus.

He has sought you from before time even began.

He emptied heaven to come and pursue you with a B line.

So seek first the Kingdom and just let Jesus sort out the

results and the outcomes. I mean, Jesus's life appeared to

be no bigger than a period at the end of a sentence would have

ended. Jesus's life appeared to be a

failure at first. The 1st 30 years of his life

were lived in complete obscurity.

He never traveled outside of the Middle East.

As far as we know. He never married, he never had

kids. Everything we know about him is

crammed into three years of ministry.

Even that ministry ended with him being condemned as a

criminal. You could not imagine a smaller

start for his Kingdom Couldn't do it.

That's the smallest start you can imagine.

But what does a mustard seed do? It's planted, it's crushed, and

then it begins to grow and it begins to choke everything else

out. And then it grows and puts out

branches that are so wide and extends so far that 2000 years

later all the way in Des Moines, IA, is a branch for you to make

home for yourself in the Kingdom of God.

So seek first the Kingdom. I got a lot of a lot of us.

We don't seek first the Kingdom because we don't know how

mustard seeds work. But now you do.

So let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you for

being a mustard seed king, Being a king who seems obscure, who

seems to be without results, who starts small and yet changes and

transforms the entire world. That's a king that I want to be

on mission with. And so, Lord, I just pray that

we would not be a church that despises small things.

You don't have to be a church leader to change the world.

You don't have to be a pastor to change the world.

You don't have to be a public speaker to change the world.

You don't have to have 10,000 followers on social media to

change the world. You just got to scatter, sleep

and be prepared for the harvest with the sickle.

So, Lord, would you equip us to do just that?

It's in the precious name of Jesus that we pray these things.

Amen.